An Ode to Pooh Bear

Every Disney lover has their own favorite Disney character, but their are certain special characters seen so frequently in film/television and in Disney Store/Parks merchandise that they could almost be categorized as a “mascot.” Mickey Mouse and all of his friends, Jiminy Cricket, and Tinker Bell, fit the bill, but one other character who would fall underneath that category easily would be Winnie the Pooh. And in honor of the soon-to-open Disney film, Christopher Robin (2018), I thought in this blog we could explore the history of Winnie the Pooh in books by A.A. Milne…and how he ultimately became a huge part of the Disney legacy.  

Winnie the Pooh was developed by Alan Alexander “A.A.” Milne after his son, Christopher Robin Milne’s stuffed bear, Edward. The Milne’s renamed the bear Winnie the Pooh after a black bear named Winnie and a swan whose named happened to be Pooh. The character Winnie the Pooh made his first appearance in a book of poetry by A.A. Milne called When We Were Very Young published in 1924. He was in the 38th poem in the book, titled “Teddy Bear.” His illustration was done by Milne’s illustrator, Ernest Howard “E.H.” Shepard. Later Milne and Shepard collaborated on the original “Winnie the Pooh” books Winnie-the-Pooh (published in 1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (published in 1928).  

Walt Disney was interested as early as 1938 in the idea of making a film of “Winnie the Pooh,” having consistently overheard his daughter, Diane, laughing, over them when she was alone in her bedroom. However, it wasn’t until 1961 that he officially acquired the rights. Not long after, Disney changed his mind and decided to make a short film that would be attached to a live-action film. The first Winnie the Pooh short, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, was released on February 4th, 1966. It played in front of The Ugly Dachshund (1966) which starred Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette. “Honey Tree,” would unfortunately be the only short Walt would see in the final form, as he passed away 10 months later (on December 15th, 1966).

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) was released next NS It garnered the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Cartoons. Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, who directed the short, accepted the award on behalf of Walt Disney. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too followed in 1974. It “too,” received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Short Film, Animated. Those three shorts were combined for a feature length film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, in 1977. The 4th and final Winnie the Pooh short, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, was released in 1983. All of the original “Winnie the Pooh,” shorts feature the music of legendary composer/lyricist team of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. 

Dan Ferguson and Richard Moore created a “Winnie the Pooh,” comic strip which lasted from 1978-1988. Pooh also made his debut on television in Welcome to Pooh Corner (1983-1986), followed by The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988-1991), and returned to the Silver Screen in Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997). In 1986, he got his first video game: Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh ultimately even has his own theme park attractions in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh which opened at Walt Disney World in 1999 (and can be found at all the Disney Parks) and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt which opened at Tokyo Disneyland in 2003.

Disney Studios later gave both Tigger and Piglet their own movies with The Tigger Movie (2000) and Piglet’s Big Movie (2003). Pooh and his friends were re-adapted in the animatronic format for television in The Book of Pooh (2001-2003), and they also received two additional films with Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005) and Winnie the Pooh (2011). There has also been a huge number of “Winnie the Pooh” shorts and films that have been directly released for Blu-Ray and DVD, including Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo (2004) and Tigger & Pooh and a Musical Too (2009). And “Christopher Robin,” will officially be coming to theaters on Friday, August 3rd, featuring a screenplay by Allison Schroeder, writer of Hidden Figures (2016) and Tom McCarthy, writer of Disney/Pixar’s Up (2009) and Alex Ross Perry. It is under the direction of Marc Forster, director of Finding Neverland (2004) and Stranger than Fiction (2006).

  Winnie the Pooh has a quite remarkable history throughout the Disney studios. His “Best friend” demeanor and his ability to seemingly overcome whatever obstacle or problem his friends are facing makes him a favorite for many. He often manages to help a friend without even realizing that he has. We hear him say he is “a bear of very little brain,” but he is actually smarter than he thinks. He humbles himself without even knowing it, and that is what makes him so lovable, and his popularity helps the Disney legacy stay alive.

Carol Burnett: Glad We Had This Time

Lucille Ball is arguably, the first woman in the history of show business who made it possible for women to be funny. Her portrayal of Lucy Ricardo in I Love Lucy (1951-1957) is a staple in reruns. And today there are many women who are exceptionally talented comedians, i.e.: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, and many others. Another woman who really “paved the way,” for women to be funny was Lucy’s protege, Carol Burnett. The Carol Burnett Show (1967-1978) was the first variety show to have a female host. Carol Burnett’s then-husband, Joe Hamilton, was a producer on the show, similar to how Lucille Ball’s then-husband, Desi Arnaz, was the executive producer of “I Love Lucy.” “Carol Burnett,” which also starred, Harvey Korman, Tim Conway, Vickie Lawrence, and Lyle Waggoner, made millions of people laugh, both in the studio audiences and “throughout TV Land.” Beyond all the laughs, however, Carol Burnett’s real life, was anything, but humorous.

Carol Burnett was born in San Antonio Texas on April 26th, 1933. She relocated to Hollywood, CA as a young child with her sister, Chris, where they were raised by their grandmother “Nannie,” due to their parents struggle with alcohol and ultimate divorce. As a young child, Carol Burnett became a huge fan of movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood and instantly developed the desire to break into show business. After graduating Hollywood High School, she went to study journalism at UCLA, but spent her spare time performing in plays at the University. After doing a special performance at a University party, a man and his wife approached Carol and complemented her on her performance, and asking if she had any future plans. She replied that she would like to someday go to New York to perform on Broadway. The man then asked her why she wasn’t already there and she replied that she simply did not have the money. To her great surprise, the man took out his wallet and gave her a check for $1,000 to go to New York and try her luck. He gave it to her on three conditions: she would pay it back to him in five years, no interest, she would also help others get started as well if she found success, and that she would also never reveal her benefactor’s name. Astonished, she was on her way. 

  After relocating to New York with her college sweetheart, Don Saroyan, whom she would later marry, Carol Burnett immediately began auditioning for Broadway musicals. She auditioned for the female lead role in a show called Babes in Arms, a Rodgers and Hart musical that opened on Broadway in 1937, was adapted for film in 1939, and was to be revived in the mid-1950’s. The producers were planning on having it open in Florida and ultimately bring it to Broadway. Carol Burnett made it all the way through the audition process and the producers of the show, and even Richard Rodgers himself, were pleased with her, and the director wanted to give her the role, but sadly the producers decided they wanted a name for the show rather than a newcomer. However, after receiving rejection via a phone call, Carol’s telephone rang again just a few minutes later, in which she received an invitation to audition for an off-Broadway production of a show called Once Upon a Mattress, a musical-comedy based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea. She auditioned, and was cast in the leading role of Princess Winifred the Woebegone, which earned her a Tony Award Nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. (Meanwhile, the revival of Babes in Arms, closed in Florida, before having even made it to Broadway.)   

Around the time of being cast in “Mattress,” Carol Burnett also earned a regular spot on The Garry Moore Show (1958-1967), a program that had begun as a radio program in 1950, but transitioned to television in 1958 and was produced by CBS. The show featured comedy skits, monologues, singing, and Q&A sessions with the audience, all of which Carol later brought to her own show. It was because of Garry Moore that Carol Burnett not only learned, understood, loved television. It was also on “Garry Moore,” that Carol Burnett invented her famous “ear tug,” which she did on both “Garry Moore,” and later her own show. After an unfortunate divorce from Saroyan, Carol Burnett met her second husband, Joe Hamilton, who was a producer on “Garry Moore,” and later on her own show. He was also the composer/lyricist of the song “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together.” 

CBS was initially reluctant to give Carol Burnett her own show, despite how talented she was as a performer. They simply told her that comedy variety is a “man’s game.” Carol Burnett was determined to do her own thing with CBS as she was under contract with the network, and she and her husband both continued to persist. Even after CBS gave in, neither CBS nor Carol and her “rep players” were entirely confident that they would last even one season. Surprisingly they lasted for 11 hysterical years! The show won eight Golden Globes, five of which were for Carol Burnett herself, and 25 Primetime Emmys. The show premiered on September 11th, 1967 and closed on March 29th, 1978. Besides applying what she had learned on “Garry Moore,” to her own show, i.e.: Q&A sessions and musical numbers, what made “Carol Burnett,” unique from “Garry Moore,” was that she also invented the idea of movie parodies on her show. One of the most popular parodies was that of “Went With the Wind,” a parody of Gone With the Wind (1939) in which she plays Starlett O’Hara who walks out on stage wearing a ridiculously large dress made of curtains, but the curtains are still attached to a curtain rod. Carol Burnett also became known for her “Tarzan yell,” which she did numerous times on her show.    

Two years following the closing of her show, Carol Burnett made a special guest star appearance as herself on The Muppet Show in 1980. She unfortunately endured her second divorce from Joe Hamilton in 1984, but remained close with him afterwards. In 1987, she hosted the “Great Moments in Disney Animation,” special on The Wonderful World of Disney (1954-present), which back then was called the Disney Sunday Movie from 1987-1990. Carol Burnett also hosted the Walt Disney World 4th of July Spectacular in 1988 and Walt Disney World’s 20th Anniversary Celebration in 1991. In 2001, besides the tragedy of 9/11, Carol Burnett’s oldest daughter, Carrie Hamilton was also diagnosed with lung cancer that summer and she died in January the following year at the age of 38. More positively, however, Carol Burnett married for the third time to Brian Miller, the principal drummer and contractor for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra on November 24th, 2001, and she and Miller have been happily married for 17 years. In 2005, Carol Burnett collaborated with ABC as both an executive producer and star of the made-for-television movie-musical Once Upon a Mattress, though in the film she portrayed Queen Aggravain, who is Princess Winifred’s main antagonist, while Winifred herself was played by Tracey Ullman. Carol Burnett also voiced Haru in the Disney/Studio Ghibli film, The Secret World of Arietty (2012).

Carol Burnett is one of the funniest ladies ever. For almost seventy years, she has made the whole world laugh, from performing on Broadway, to her incredibly hilarious variety show, to some performances in film, to even writing some memoirs: This Time Together in 2010 and In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox. She truly has created a unique legacy of humor that will never be forgotten.  

Disney’s Americana

Knowing that the 4th of July, otherwise known as Independence Day, will be here in three days from now, I thought in this blog we could acknowledge some of the artifacts produced by Disney that acknowledge the history of America. We will talk about movies, television shows, and theme park attractions and why many of them are special today. 

For starters, in 1953 the Disney Studios produced a short called Ben and Me. The short told a fictional story of how a mouse named Amos met and befriended Benjamin Franklin and collaborated with him in contribution to the American Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The short featured the voice talents of Disney film veterans Sterling Holloway as Amos and Charles Ruggles as Benjamin Franklin. The short also featured Hans Conried as Thomas Jefferson and Bill Thompson as Governor Keith. (Ironically Conried and Thompson also lent their voices to Captain Hook and Mr. Smee in Peter Pan (1953), which was released the same year as “Ben and Me.”) It received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Short Subject, Two-reel, but was beaten by Bear Country (1953) which is a documentary in Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventure Series. (Concidentally, “Ben and Me,” played in front of another one of the True-Life Adventure Series, The Living Desert (1953), which won the first-ever Oscar for Best Documentary!)

In 1954, on the ABC Network, Walt Disney began airing the Davy Crockett series, starring Fess Parker as Crockett and Buddy Ebsen as his sidekick Georgie Russell. The show also featured Hans Conried as Thimblerig. The mini-series had a total of three episodes which aired from December ’54 to February ’55. Later, the mini-series was combined into a feature-length movie called Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier. The show was an incredible hit, and led to production of all kinds of “Crockett,” merchandise, including coonskin caps. More significantly, the show has been referred to as the very first television mini-series ever, though it was a little longer before that term was officially labeled. All of that led to a sequel/prequel production film called Davy Crockett and the River Pirates which aired as a two-episode series from November ’55-December ’55, and was later edited together as a movie in 1956. The show also led to the creation of Davy Crockett Ranch, which opened at the Euro Disney Resort in April 1992. 

Disney has also made short films acknowledging figures in American folklore. In 1948, the studios created Melody Time, which featured a short about the character of Johnny Appleseed and the song “Lord is Good to Me.” Ten years after the film, Disney released the short Paul Bunyan with Thurl Ravenscroft as Bunyan—who in addition to having many Disney voice-over roles—was also known for having voiced Tony the Tiger in all the Frosted Flakes commercials. The short received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Short Subject, Cartoons. Like “Ben and Me,” it can only be seen on the DVD collection Walt Disney Treasures: Wave Five, released in 2005. In 2000, Mark Henn, who was the supervising animator on many of Disney’s princesses, directed a short called John Henry, featuring the voices of Geoffrey Jones and Alfre Woodard—who will next be seen in Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of The Lion King (2019).                   

Walt Disney’s all-time favorite U.S. President was Abraham Lincoln, and he was such a huge fan of Lincoln, that as a child he dressed up as Lincoln in school for a special project where he recited the Gettysburg Address from memory in front of his class. His performance was so well received, that he was even asked to give encores to the other classes at school. The memory of this experience stayed with Walt the rest of his life, and ultimately it hatched an idea in his head to build an attraction at Disneyland that would be an homage to Lincoln.

Walt originally planned the idea as a theater show called “One Nation Under God,” with robotic figures of all the U.S. presidents before and after Lincoln, and he planned on testing out the attraction at the New York World’s Fair, before it would move to the Disneyland Resort. When the project was in production, Robert Moses, who was the head of the New York World’s Fair came to the Disney Studio to see it, and he was so impressed that he insisted on having the attraction open at the fair. Walt was satisfied but decided that there was not enough time for them to finish the entire attraction before the opening day of the fair. Thus, the project was made to focus only on Lincoln. With their reliance on historical artifacts and the breakthrough of audio-animatronics, Walt Disney’s imagineers brought to life Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, premiering at the New York World’s Fair just in time, along with three other attractions: It’s a Small World, Carousel of Progress, and Ford’s Magic Skyway. Walt hired actor Royal Dano to provide the voice of the animatronic Lincoln. “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” opened at the Disneyland Resort the day after the park turned ten years old on July 18th, 1965. In 2012, Disney-owned company Touchstone Pictures released Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, for which he won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe.

Walt’s original idea for the every-president animatronic attraction was later re-invented by his imagineers for attraction known for The Hall of Presidents, which opened on the Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort on October 1st, 1971. The hall includes every president from George Washington to Donald Trump, with Royal Dano reprising his role as Lincoln. (Dano appeared in Disney’s film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983).) The Liberty Square is also home to The Haunted Mansion attraction, The Muppets Present…Great Moments in American History, and the Liberty Belle Riverboat.   

Disney has acknowledged American History creatively in many different forms, using entertainment to remind us all how our nation got to where it is today.